ABSTRACT
The rural population of Zealand had been bound to the soil since ancient times. On 1 December 1735, Holstein’s successor, Provincial Governor Gersdorff, ordered a hunt to be organised of vagrants across the whole of Zealand. The soldiers lived under an inhuman discipline, which might well have persuaded some to run away. Desertion was frequent and was often associated with looting and larger scale theft. The peasant soldiers in the militia were also a destabilising element. Peasant farmhands were far from keen to be drafted into the militia and would do anything to avoid it. The underworld had its own form of organisation. This was a familiar phenomenon, especially in Germany, where there was greater freedom at the borders between the many German states and free cities. The Kalundborg nightmen could, then, speak the European robber language and could in the way establish a covert and esoteric communication with like minds in the European underworld.
